


Before The Stone

by msmarycrawley



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Blood and Violence, Canon Universe, Character Study, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity Gems, Minor Original Character(s), My First Work in This Fandom, Origin Story, Past Abuse, Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Pre-Canon, Psychological Drama, Rivalry, Sibling Rivalry, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:03:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmarycrawley/pseuds/msmarycrawley
Summary: "Who is Gamora?" That memorable line was in one of the funniest sequences in Infinity War, but do we REALLY know her? This is about Gamora: a chronological examination of one of Marvel's most underutilized and underappreciated characters and her thoughts, her feelings, her loves, and most importantly her life.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> After Endgame, I knew I wanted to start writing again. I also did after seeing both GOTG movies a year ago but that never came to fruition because I am garbage and procrastinate beyond belief. I struggled for a few days deciding on what to write on, and I still have other half baked fic ideas floating around in my head, but I'm happy with what I'm now doing here. 
> 
> Marvel does Gamora dirty. She is my favorite character in the MCU, and after talking to some people in the GOTG fandom I realized that there's no real consensus on her backstory or even details about her species. I was intrigued and wanted to make my own history for her, and while it's no small task I hope I can at least provide some insight into her character.
> 
> I don't know what the future holds for Gamora. While I'm happy she's back in any capacity, for reasons unbeknownst to me she continues to be underrated in the fandom and the MCU itself. I love both her and Peter so much. 
> 
> It's been a long time since I've written fanfiction. This is the first story on my account, and I will try and be consistent with updates. I want to commit to this (and please, hold me to it if I'm not). I hope you like it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot longer than I thought it would end up being. Let me know if you feel like it drags. If this is formatted incorrectly or you feel I could have done that better on that please tell me as well.

_Free day_

 

Today was one of her few days off. Even Nebula was permitted to explore their newfound turf while Thanos and the Black Order scoured another doomed civilization. Eventually they were to help pick up the pieces, but for now, the girls were allowed to exist on their own.

Gamora’s surroundings threatened to tempt the childhood out of her. 

A coat of red dust covered the ground underneath her feet. She could taste the sweetness of the air rich with nutrients in every breath. Surrounding her were trees that seemed to be as tall as the orange sky itself, forever reaching, beckoning upwards. Behind them peaked the planet's two enormous suns, engulfing half of the skyline. 

She wanted to run. 

Gamora was, of course, still an adolescent. Yet at ten years old she had been exposed to more war and depravity than any of the sorry souls Thanos killed.

Sometimes he made her watch him. She had a front row seat too, right on his shoulder. He would force her to look at the spilled guts and blood of the perished, those who he killed and those who were already dead when they arrived. _Look_ he bellowed. _Behold the almighty universe in all of her glory. This is what people die trying to protect. Look and understand, daughter. You must prepare. Look!_

Look.

 

“Look!” Nebula was crouching next to a flower as big as herself and poking it with a tentative finger. She kept glancing back at her sister, as if she was waiting for her to run over and respond with the same enthusiasm. Gamora widened her eyes and allowed a hint of a smile to pass from her lips.  
She envied the child that was still within her. By some miracle he had not taken it from her yet.

Suddenly the flower's tendrils snapped from their hiding place, attempting to draw Nebula in. She yelled and jumped backward as they both watched the entire plant recede into the ground. The absurdity of what had just happened made Gamora laugh harder than she had in what felt like forever. "You should have seen your face!" It was the only thing she managed to spit out. She was doubled over now, trying and failing to catch her breath. They both thought she would get pulled in there for a second. 

Gamora reached out for sister's arm to steady herself in a rare non-aggressive attempt at contact. "Hey! It's not funny!" Nebula whined and stepped back, although she was now almost smiling too. 

Once she composed herself, Gamora sat down with a contented sigh. Nebula was kicking the dust up as she walked away, brooding to herself as she always did. "Oh boo hoo," Gamora called to her. She knew she wasn't really upset. If she was, she'd try and provoke her back.

She leaned back and let her hair dangle from her head, soaking in the light of the sun. Gamora felt warm. Finally, there was nobody around to harm her, nothing to upset her, nothing to make her hate being alive. How long it would last did not matter, because this moment could carry her through the next year. 

And she had a new friend. As if on cue, she felt the air around her being disrupted by fluttering wings, and a weight on her head. She shook it off and the figure moved to hover right in front of her. He was a bit smaller than her and much lighter. "You again," Gamora said, false chastising him. "You again." He repeated shrilly. She didn't know what kind of a creature it was, only that it had to be a native to this planet. 

 

The creature was unlike anything Gamora had seen before. The thing had dark purple skin, a head twice the size of his neck, and eyes so wide they could be targets. The face was oval shaped, and he had a body that got narrower as it went on. 

As far as she could tell, he was not strong and not particularly fast. His existence perplexed her. It surely had to be a prey animal, and yet he had some level of intelligence because he could speak-barely. He could not or would not speak in full sentences and only repeated after her. She decided to call him Echo.

It was almost comical watching him struggle to keep his weight up in the air, his long dangly legs pulling him down. She came across Echo while searching for food. His tiny wings worked because he was using them now-but no matter how hard she tried to shoo it away he kept coming back, clinging to her. He was harmless and didn't look tasty, so she eventually let him stick around. It was nice to not feel completely alone sometimes.

She was still trying to relax, but Echo started crawling all over her. She sat up as it tried to get across her stomach. He halted. Gamora closed her eyes again, which was a mistake, because she soon felt a yank and then watched as Echo flew off with her knife that she had kept in her little waist pouch. 

"Hey!" She called out. "Hey!" Came the response. When he heard he her flew back, hovering just above the length she could reach with the knife clutched in his webbed feet. Gamora jumped up, trying to swing it from out of his grip, and he moved backwards just as she moved upwards. He was teasing her. 

Nebula heard their voices and appeared from behind the tree she was using as a resting spot. "Is it that thing again?" She yawned.

"Yes!" Gamora yelled at her, still jumping up and down ridiculously while the creature mocked her above. Nebula watched the scene, amused. Now it was her turn to laugh. Suddenly it took off like a bullet, and she saw her sister race after it. _That was a nice knife._ And she knew that it was the first one Thanos gave her. _Maybe if it dropped it..._ She couldn't see them anymore. Without thinking twice Nebula sprinted after them to make up for lost time.

 

Echo flew right above Gamora, not behind, not in front. So much for him being slow. She looked back at the dust trail she created with her little legs and saw her sister barrelling towards her on her right, attempting to weave in between the trees. She suddenly stopped and yelled. Echo, evidently distracted and stimulated by the interruption, screeched back and flew its way to Nebula. 

Echo was playing the same game with her sister now, circling above her, taunting. But he was getting cocky, because as Nebula started to make her way up to a tree right at his level, he wasn't moving.

"You aren't getting that knife!!!" Gamora screamed at her, trotting over. "Wanna BET?" came the instant reply. Nebula was now leaning almost completely off of the tree trunk with her arm extended, waving it wildly, the object just barely within reach. Echo didn't know where to look now. Gamora had an idea. "Nebula!" She yelled again. Her voice was getting sore. "Let's both work to get him exhausted, and whoever gets the knife when it drops can keep it. Okay?" 

Her sister dropped down from the tree with a thud, stood up, and nodded. Gamora had to admire her durability. A jump like that would have seriously injured her. They took off in different directions but were never too far apart, so that Echo's tiny wings would slow and he would cease trying to tease the both of them. It was fun.

Gamora kept running, running, running. Until... **THUD.**

She ran into something. Or rather, someone. Because when she looked up to see what had disrupted her game she saw Thanos staring back at her. 

"Little one, what are you doing?"

She kneeled immediately, still breathing hard. He must have come back for something and heard their yells.

She could hear Nebula's footsteps approaching, watched her kneel out of the corner of her eyes. “Father, we were only playing.” Nebula rose as quickly as she came down, darting her eyes in her sister’s direction. Gamora bit her lip until it hurt, still focused on the ground. Her sister had made the mistake of speaking first without being addressed. She had stood without permission. Always so reckless. She couldn't see Echo.

 

She could feel Nebula’s desperation, feel her and her father both looking at her for what felt like an eternity. She would not move. 

"Rise," the mad titan said. So she did. 

"You may speak". So she did. 

 

Gamora tried to choose her words carefully. "I found this peculiar creature the other day. He liked me. While we were both resting he took my knife and flew away, but he wasn't going to really take it, because he didn't go too far. He was playing with us. We were waiting until he got tired." She looked up expectantly. Behind her captor, the sky was turning from a bright orange to crimson red. 

Without speaking, Thanos reached to the tree next to him and bent its branch. There was Echo, the little purple creature, crouching on his skinny hind legs. He still had the knife. He still wanted to play. "This thing?" He now addressed Gamora. She nodded, trying to watch both him and Echo at once. He grabbed around his torso with his thumb and forefinger, lifting him up. She could hear the animal start to whimper. 

"You were making too much noise. BOTH of you." He swiveled his enormous head in Nebula's direction, who was now in the halfway place between a kneel and fully standing, with her legs crouched slightly. 

Thanos slowly bent down in an attempt to get close to Nebula and Gamora's level, taking wriggling Echo with him.

"There is time for play, daughters. But not in a new environment. What if there were enemies about? Hmm?" He sighed. "You are both far too young to be left alone. I should have known."

 _NO!_ Gamora wanted so badly to yell at him, scream at him, demand her free time. She desperately wanted to get away, to escape from him forever. And if she couldn't do that, she needed solitude, she needed fun, or she would become a shell of a girl. It was already starting.

 

She could do it, too. She could yell. He would not allow that behavior from Nebula, but Gamora could say anything. This time, though, she knew she had slipped up and had to pay for it. He was in no mood to receive her complaints.

Thanos smiled and looked at Echo. He was trembling with his wings hanging, completely terrified. 

"Do you know what this thing is?" He pointed a huge finger at him. Echo recoiled. 

Gamora shook her head.

Thanos stood up. "Me neither. Do you know why?" He placed Echo into his palm, giving him a false sense of freedom. Just as he started to straighten up and look around, Thanos pinched his wings and lifted him up while the creature screamed in agony. Gamora clenched her jaw so hard she thought her teeth would fall out.

"Because it is nothing. A pest," He hissed. "This is what you risked your safety for. And it STOLE from you."

"Do you agree that it is nothing, daughters?" 

They both nodded fervently. Gamora noticed a member of the Black Order appear behind him, as if he was silently summoned.

"Good." He was looking off into the distance now. "I expect better of you, little one. But it was just a mistake. You will learn. And YOU," he now glared at Nebula, as the cretin behind Thanos moved forward.

Her sister backed up. She was starting to lose her composure. Gamora couldn't blame her.

"I have no use for you at this moment. Take her. She's had her 'fun'". 

The Black Order creature surged forward in one single motion, grabbing her and flinging her over his shoulder. Gamora looked back at her, horrified. Thanos, as ever in the midst of his sadism, was quite serene.

 

"NO, no, no no please father no! PLEASE! Not again. Not again, I'll be better I promise." Nebula was begging now. 

A blue arm reached out to her from the back of the devil's henchman as he passed. She could do nothing but watch. "Gamora! Please! You don't know, you don't know what happens. 

Father!

Father. 

Father, I'm sorry father.

Please. Don't send me back, don't send me back!

 **FATHER!** " 

 

“You will be released when you learn your manners”, Thanos used his louder voice to call back to her. He hadn't even reprimanded her for speaking out of turn, or for standing up. He just punished her.

Her voice was fading into the trees now, as the Black Order henchman retreated back to their base. She was right, Gamora had no idea what happened to Nebula when she wasn't around. She didn't want to find out anytime soon. Her sister was never good enough for Thanos. She felt horrible, but she was glad she could not hear her screams anymore. It was too much. 

"So, little one." Thanos looked at her again. "If you agree that this thing is nothing, this won't be hard for you." 

_Oh no._ She knew what was coming. 

The titan pulled on Echo's wings again. It shrieked.

"This is actually the perfect opportunity." He held his other palm out, waiting.

Another Black Order member she hadn't even noticed pulled out a blaster and placed it in his hand.

 

_Oh NO._

He walked towards Gamora, crouched in front of her, and grinned in a way that was supposed to be warm. "It's time." He placed the weapon in her tiny hand.

Her first kill. He talked often about it, wanted it to be something special for her. Taking a life was the first step to becoming a warrior, he told her. To be strong, you had to weed out the weak. She wanted nothing more than to kill him herself. But she finally accepted that she had to do it to some other poor victim if she wanted to stay alive so that she could. His mind could change about her in an instant.

_Not now. It couldn't be now. Not him._

Something inside of her reached around the trigger. It was like she wasn't in control anymore. 

_Why am I doing this?_

She lifted it. 

_You have to._

She looked in the face of the innocent creature still in Thano's fingers. His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. He started screaming, wriggling every which way trying to escape. 

She lifted it towards him.

_This is like killing a child. This is worse than killing a child. A child is smarter._

Echo might not have been smart but he was smart enough to know when death was staring him right in the face. His purple back twisted, contorted. He looked wildly about, trying to move the wings still pinched in his captor's hands.

 

Thanos stood up now. 

"Do it."

He was her friend. She couldn't. _You must._

Her arm started trembling. She suddenly couldn't see. **NO.**

She wiped her face. She refused to cry in front of her captor. She refused to look away, forcing herself to bear witness to her horrible deed.

In one quick motion, she aimed at Echo and pulled the trigger on her brand new blaster. She watched him crumple to the ground like falling debris. 

 

She joined Echo in collapsing after it was done. She stayed there for a while staring at the red dust. Blood red. The innocent blood that was now on her hands.  
"Good. Come," she heard a deep voice say in some faraway place. She was only ten. It was supposed to be one of her few days off.


	2. Genesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every end has a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have absolutely no excuse for updating this so late other than I have a part-time job now and I sometimes find it hard to find motivation, but even so. I figured that since it's close to the fifth anniversary of Guardians of the Galaxy being released, I had to add something. I've thought about all the different ways this particular event could have gone down, each of them is as depressing as the last and has the same result. The genocide of the Zehoberei is one of the darkest things in the MCU and one of the most overlooked atrocities. That one scene in Infinity War was so horrible. This more than anything else is what unfortunately defined the better part of Gamora's life, and it deserves to be recognized and treated as such. I won't say enjoy because.. well, you know.

The planet of Zen-Whoberi use to be as green as its inhabitants. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing a bit of it-the light, the shimmering green of the fog in the atmosphere, the faded green of the rolling hills, the foreboding green of the vast forests, the celebratory green of the mountaintops.

Gamora's favorite green was in the fields she played in as a child, running through tall blades of grass and flowers that greeted her as she passed by. Green was in the food they ate, the clothes they wore, the air that they breathed, in themselves. Until it wasn't.

The Zehoberi were a peaceful species. For thousands of years, they flourished under the all-giving sun and worshipped her creations. Theirs was the planet of growth, of the highest concentration of plants lightyears across. Happy to bask and share in their good fortune, the Zehoberi welcomed all who wished to visit and make a home out of their lovely planet for generations. Zen-Whoberi and its inhabitants were so well thought of that come wartime, treaties were made to avoid the planet. They were respected and loved by all. But the Zen-Whoberi made a fatal mistake. They started taking their home for granted. When the first crops started failing, nothing was thought of it. There had always been a surplus of food and resources, and so they had assumed things could go on as usual. The disease spread everywhere like wildfire-until they were only left with a few fields of plants to harvest from where everybody crowded. They stopped letting in visitors and refugees. But it was not enough. They began to starve. Whatever "it" was turned everything it touched to black. Food became virtually inedible. If one ate anything that so much as touched infected ingredients they would be sick for months on end and die. What little crops the planet had left were starting to dwindle. 

Everyone used to smile as they walked past, but now their heads hung down low, refusing to make eye contact. The characteristic high cheekbones of the Zen-Whoberi became shrunken in, the skin around their eyes pulled down. Pregnancy became a source of sorrow. Mothers now bore their children in isolation, away from the settlements. It was up to them to decide what to do about it afterward. “What happened to all the babies?” Young Gamora once asked, already knowing the answer. She saw a dead body on the way home. Her mother said nothing.  
If they did not try to induce a miscarriage, mothers had started resorting to suffocation, poison, anything to end a life of starvation before it began. The mothers that abstained from this raised their babies alone, bearing the full weight of their choices. 

Gamora had gotten lucky, she was strong and old enough now to survive hunger. Any younger and she too would have perished. Her family had never been poor, but after selling their most prized possessions for a stash of clean ingredients to last a few months, they were starting to suffer. Once, Gamora found a pretty necklace in a shop that she wanted and asked her mother for. It wasn't very expensive, and something that could have easily been purchased not that long ago. If she had to go hungry, maybe she could at least have _something_ of value. She still did not grasp the situation, still clinging to normalcy. Her mother said no, and Gamora's young mind had almost forgotten she asked about it until she heard her weeping silently that night when she thought she was asleep. Her parents tried to make the best of things, despite how far they had fallen. Her father had gone away to the far side of the planet along with the other males by the sea, in an attempt to find another pocket of untouched crops. Gamora's mother still told her all of her favorite stories before bed, they still went out to the fields every day to forage for salvageable plants. But when the ships arrived on that apocalyptic day, they hadn't eaten in almost a week. 

 

“Show me”, her mother would say. And Gamora presented her hands, caked with mud and soil. If they were dirty enough after rooting around for plants, she would let her go home. They mostly went to the fields out of habit now, almost nobody found anything save a few measly mushrooms. The Zehoberi were creatures of habit-if they could find any bit of normalcy even in the face of starvation, they would make a routine and stick by it. 

Gamora still loved the fields, despite everything. She could almost forget about the emptiness of her stomach when she ran across the grass, stretching her arms out to hit the taller stalks of rotted wheat. She could almost forget about the fact that she threw up any food offered to her now because she was so unused to eating, and her mother had to force her to swallow it down when she heard other children laughing in the distance. She did not think about death, because she knew her mother would always protect her. Every morning, she would give her a bath in dirty water and sing ancient songs. In the afternoon, the two would sit in the sunlight outside of their home for a moment with a ration of water and talk. Her mother would leave for a bit, and Gamora would wait for her to return with nothing. If she took too long, Gamora started looking for food on her own in the wrong places, getting chased down by even hungrier Zen-Whoberi and waiting until they gave up. Sometimes she stole. Years later once she could finally handle thinking about that day without having nightmares for months, Gamora realized that what her mother was doing in the meantime was begging. _Begging_. And none of it ended up mattering. 

Gamora stood in those very fields, the source of so much joy, the day the world ended. "Show me," her mother said, the same way she had said countless times before. And she did. She was about to head home when she heard a noise loud and powerful enough to shake the very ground she stood on. Every Zehoberi looked up and around in confusion. It happened again, and darkness covered the sky. She remembered thinking it was a cloud. She would never forget the look on her mother's face at that moment. Lots of people try to look brave when they die. They try to hide their emotions as best they can, and Gamora almost had to admire them for it before she killed them. But no matter how much she's killed, no matter what she ever did, nothing ever came close to the look of sheer, unadulterated terror that she saw in her mother. She was a deer in the headlights looking at the sky. Gamora was confused. Nobody else seemed as worried as her mother was, they were all just trying to figure out what was going on. But she seemed to know. Once she saw her daughter staring at her, she snapped out of it. "Gamora, _run._ " When she didn't move, she screamed. "RUN! RUN! RUN!" over and over at her. The Zehoberi around her started murmuring and crying out. It terrified Gamora-she was afraid to look up- but she was more afraid of how scared her mother was. So she ran. She heard her cry "I'll catch up! RUN as fast as you can!" in the background. She ran as fast as she could, and she saw others start running too. The noises continued, and she heard banging sounds in the distance. When she looked back, she saw dust rise and a large object-a _ship_ land where she had just been. The adults were trying their best to keep up with the children, but they were mostly too weak. With every step she considered turning right back around to her mother, but she wouldn't let her down. She would be strong, as strong as she raised her to be. 

The banging grew louder and louder, the screams were amplified all around her, but Gamora did not stop until she reached her home. Her lungs felt like they were about to burst as she crawled under her bed and waited. For what, she didn't know, but the sounds ceased. Whoever-whatever-was in that ship hadn't reached the center of town. Gamora almost put herself into a trance, blocking everything out around her. She closed her eyes and sang the ancient songs her mother taught her in her head to calm her down. It felt like years later when she heard the bloodcurdling screams again, the guns firing all around her, and still she stayed under her bed, fearing what she might see. She felt a sharp tug at her leg and screamed, fighting whoever was dragging her out from under her hiding spot. "Stop, stop, my daughter!" she heard a voice say, struggling to keep her still. Gamora looked up and saw who should have been her saving grace. "Mother!" she sobbed immediately, leaping onto her chest and wrapping her arms around her as tight as she could. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay darling... you'll be okay. I promise that you'll be okay." For that moment, the fear within her was gone as she wiped the tears from Gamora's cheek, nurturing her as only a mother can. But she saw her in those fields. She knew how terrified she really was. That was the last thing she ever said to her. 

Years after Thanos stole her away, Gamora wondered if her mother had been slaughtered on the spot, or whether she had been left on the planet to starve-or thrive, as he kept insisting. She didn't know which was worse, and she did not look back once as she entered that ship.


End file.
